


Field Medicine 101

by MK_Yujji



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen, Humor, POV Outsider, disastrous away missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28335996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/pseuds/MK_Yujji
Summary: A new ensign has a few struggles on his first away mission.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	Field Medicine 101

**Author's Note:**

> I have spent the last three hours trying to find the Tumblr post that this was inspired by and utterly failing. I'm sure anyone who has seen that post will know which one it is fairly quickly. If someone could drop the link in a comment so that I can add it to these notes, I'd be eternally grateful. The particular addition that inspired me was from @marlinspirkhall who mentioned that the followup medical advice definitely sounded like it could have come from Bones. And I absolutely agree! :)
> 
> EDIT: I FOUND IT! https://marlinspirkhall.tumblr.com/post/622544268799639552/physics-more-pencil-tricks-source
> 
> I didn't tag this as Reaper!Bones because while he is absolutely Reaper!Bones in my head, I don't think any part of the fic actually makes that clear. Except maybe his familiarity with dealing with the sorts of medical emergencies that the average medical personnel in Star Fleet have never even imagined. So, yes, this is Reaper!Bones, but it can be read as non-Reaper!Bones.

If Connor Davidson had known just how bad the day was going to get, he probably would have faked his death and run away from the Enterprise as fast as he could have managed.

Instead, he was stuck in a mess that he had no idea how to solve.

It wasn’t his fault. The Academy had covered plenty of hostile situations and atmospheric interference preventing communication was practically pedestrian in Star Fleet. The loss and incapacitation of the rest of the away team was awful, but an eventuality they’d done their best to prepare cadets for.

What they hadn’t exactly covered was what to do when the patient had a giant spear stuck in their guts.

Dr. McCoy was busy with the pair of security officers that had been with them and were somehow in even worse condition and had left Connor to stabilize their pilot since the man “only” had the spear.

Only. Mother fucking fuckity fuck.

He hovered over the poor bastard, hands fluttering uselessly as he considered his options. This mission wasn’t supposed to turn into this kind of clusterfuck. That’s the entire reason he was even on this insane planet.

They only had a pair of basic away team medic bags! Which, admittedly, were more well stocked than the dummy ones they used in the Academy, but nothing in it screamed ‘I can fix a giant spear wound’. 

His tricorder would only tell him what was wrong. Which was blindingly obvious. He didn’t need it to tell him ‘this poor bastard has a great honking spear in his gut.’

It did helpfully suggest he rush the patient to surgery.

Brilliant suggestion, that. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of that before.

Oh right - because no one could go anywhere until they were stabilized, which the stupid machine _didn’t_ have a suggestion for and because they were _stuck_ on the stupid planet under a stupid electric storm.

Connor forced himself to take a few deep breaths. Succumbing to mindless panicked gibberish wouldn’t help anyone. Besides, even if he managed to keep it off his face, Dr. McCoy would definitely know. He was creepy like that.

“Okay… okay… This is going to be horrifically pleasant and I am so, so sorry.”

One last deep breath and he began working the spear out.

He could tell how much it hurt the patient, but he forced himself to ignore it and just kept pulling and apologizing. 

Finally, the spear pulled loose in a rush of blood and he could breathe a sigh of relief and start trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do next.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” Doctor McCoy barked, appearing at his side like some kind of deranged spirit. “You don’t just pull it out! That’s how they bleed to death, _Ensign_.”

The way he stressed Conor’s rank made it pretty clear that he thought ‘ensign’ was interchangeable with ‘moron’.

Conor hastily pushed the spear back into the gaping, bloody hole.

“Stop!”

Every instinct in Conor’s body froze in terror at the commanding menace in the other man’s voice. A hand fisted in his uniform top and he finds himself bodily removed from the patients side. 

“Congratulations, Ensign. You’ve just stabbed him _again_.” He was shoved towards the mouth of the cave. “Go. Try to raise the Enterprise and get us off this damned rock before you kill someone.”

Conor wasn’t ashamed to admit that he fled. He’d seen even the head of security, Henderoff, quail in the face of Doctor McCoy’s ire and he was at least twice Conor’s size and far better trained. Besides, everyone knew that the bridge officers were the only people that ever escaped the CMO’s verbal evisceration without permanent mental scars.

In that moment, he desperately wanted to be anywhere else besides stuck in a cave with Leonard McCoy so he didn’t protest at all.

In the Academy, he’d laughed along with the rest of his classmates when they’d covered the various religious beliefs spread through the galaxies - both the ones that Star Fleet had encountered and the ones they’d only heard of in passing. Gods? Divine creation? It was a laughable concept in any sufficiently advanced society.

But as he sprinted through the storm to the shuttle, Conor found himself praying desperately to every diety and wish giving spirit he’d ever heard of, begging that the interference had cleared up enough that he could finally get a signal through. He was terribly afraid that if they were stuck much longer, McCoy would actually kill him.

One of them must actually exist because the signal connected on the first try.

It’s full of static, but Conor had never been happier to hear Captain Kirk’s voice in his life.

Even better, when his panic reduced him to babbling about storms and spears and a murderous Dr. McCoy, the Captain apparently _understood_ and promised to send aid immediately if they couldn’t get everyone beamed back aboard.

Conor collapsed in the pilot’s seat like his strings were cut and began to calm down for the first time since the entire nightmarish ordeal had began. Help was finally on the way and it was at least moderately comforting to know that Captain Kirk would probably not let Dr. McCoy kill him.

~*~*~

“Welcome to field medicine 101, also known as ‘How to _not_ stab a victim twice’. I’d like to _thank_ Ensign Davidson for demonstrating just how _badly_ y’all need this course.”

Connor sank down as far as his chair allowed as half the room turned to stare at him, more than a few clearly irritated that their free time had suddenly vanished until Dr. McCoy decided otherwise. And a few besides that just terrified to be stuck in a room with the irritable CMO for an unspecified length of time.

The story of their disastrous away mission had spread faster than the Talloian flu once they’d finally been rescued. None of their patients had died, though the pilot had come dangerously close to bleeding out because of Conor’s inexperience.

Inexperience that Dr. McCoy had decided might be a risk for anyone who wasn’t a seasoned veteran of the Enterprise specifically and had decided must be addressed lest it happen again.

More than once, he’d heard the CMO muttering about ineptitude and ‘sending me green _children_ ’, so he’d known it was coming before most of the rest of the ship.

He’d resigned himself to it and knew that he would have to ace the remedial course if he ever wanted to leave the ship again. 

It still wasn’t his fault.


End file.
